In the middle of our noisy scenary, sometimes you find special, original human beings who have another light, a natural and stimulating sensitivity. Giulio Ridolfo for unconventional, has even a job so abstract that can be just delimited when it is materialized on the surface of an object, on a textile, over the limits of a space.
His deep and vital knoweledge about colour and materials makes of his collaboration with Kvadrat since 2004 one of his most important professional projects. During last Orgatec, in the booth of Kvadrat at Design Post, Giulio had filled of contents two small showcases that added, along with the presentation of new collections of fabrics, a very personal ingredient, an eloquent testimony of a genuine spirit. Photos, clippings, cards and readings, collected letters, fragments and images found here and there that revealed his huge rejoicing in the tactile and nutritious materiality of things, a feast of visual sensitivity, and for all these reasons we collect it here...read more
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A SENSITIVE GAZE
PAST AND PRESENT
His gaze was unusual, fresh, spontaneous. He had a feeling for the color out of the ordinary, a natural way of using abstraction, a positive and cheerful lexical codes. These same qualities have made the work of Alexander Girard arrive to us with an amazing timeless and vital essence. His stimulus remains intact.
We have just enjoyed the installation by Herman Miller at the fair Neocon in Chicago some weeks ago. A tribute from the company where Girard worked as head of the textile division in the decades of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, adding color and optimism through the tapestries in the furniture designed, among others, by his friends George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames.
We love the incredible work of branding that he made for Braniff Airways; his passion for folk art and traditional South American craftsmanship, eloquently expressed in the interiors of the restaurant La Fonda del Sol, of New York, sadly closed. In Europe, we can enjoy his great legacy through the Vitra Design Museum in Wheil am Rein, where Girard bequeathed hundreds of drawings, objects and prototypes.
We would like to have been a little older to have been able to visit in the sixties the New York store “Textiles and Objects”, to enjoy the small objects collected by Girard throughout his travels, as well as fabrics, cushions, blankets and some furniture created for Herman Miller by other designers. "Nothing is new, but personal interpretation can often be so" he used to say...read more
SO FAR, SO CLOSE
In Milano, inside the fleeting intensity of a week of presentations, meetings and exhibitions, sometimes one find something that give a bit of calm. The Simple Vision exhibition, which showed the work of several companies of Japanese crafts in collaboration with major European and Japanese designers, in Brera during the Salone this year, gave us a moment of peace. A sum of the work of Japanese artisans and good European and Japanese designers, demonstrated the large amount of matching values between each other. The teams were Oigen and Jasper Morrison, Hinoki Kogei and Peter Marigold, Pioneer and Paul Cocksedge, Mihoya Glass and Yeongkyu Yoo, Koubei-range and Inga Sempé and Dome Carbon Magic and Nacho Carbonell...read more
SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE MILAN. OFFECCT PRESENTS THE NEW COLLECTION FOR 2012
WISE APPROACH
Are products manufactured with the right amount of energy and materials? What would happen if that amount would be reduced 20%? This is what the Japanese company Muji proposes after observing the devastation of personal belongings turning in waste in a few hours on the ground after the earthquake and tsunami. They decided then to cooperate not just with temporary solutions after the disaster, but with far-reaching proposals for the future life, by making us think about the consumption and production of products. In Japan there is an old saying that goes “eat in measure and defy the doctor”, and hence the new attitude of the Japanese company, a reflection that makes us think in the economic crisis and what we can do to buy and generate objects in a more responsible and honest way.
From 100 to 80 is the step they have taken. And what explains the name of Fitness Product 80 for the exhibition organized in London, at the Design Museum, which explains the outcome of his reflection. Essential...read more
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
Arflex is one of those Italian companies whose catalog is actually a prodigious book on the history of design. The work of Marco Zanuso, above all, is a masterful lesson on the industrialization of a product, on ergonomics and on new technologies. Indeed it was him, along with a few engineers of Pirelli, who began began to experiment the use of foam rubber and elastic tapes to create seats in the origin of the brand.
Then after came Franco Albini with his Fiorenza armchair and the fruitful collaboration with Cini Boeri.
In Barcelona, in the shop of Marta Ventós, Arkitektura, a selection of great pieces by Arflex was shown this week by the current manager, Fausto Colombo. We were surprised by the very interesting script, which follows with great energy today with new designs by big people as Vincent Van Duysen and Claesson, Koivisto, Rune...read more
USB FOR OFFECCT
We loved the one designed by Eero Kovisto, Ola Rune and Marten Claeson. We after were bringing everywhere the one by Luca Nichetto. So, when Kurt Tingdal and Anders Englund asked us to design the new USB for the press during the design fair in Stockholm this year, they made us very happy. It had to be something very functional, inspired by the weight of the chain which makes raising and lowering the screen we designed for them, amongs other items this year. We also tried to create an object that uses the minimum possible of material...read more
BELIEVE TO CREATE
We missed to be seated at a table of El Bulli restaurant. For that reason it has been a double pleasure to approach the genius of Adria in the exhibition "Ferran Adrià and elBulli. Risk, freedom and creativity" in the halls of the Palau Robert in Barcelona. An impeccable exhibition that will be open to the public until February 2013 and that after it will be travelling to New York and London. Particularly exciting the video of the farewell dinner that Adria and his team organized in July 2011 before embarking towards other ways of searching from the new ElBulli Foundation.
An exemplary encouragement of effort, innovation and talent...read more
ARCO 2012
This year the guest country has been the Netherlands. ARCO is an exciting space to feed the gaze, to learn, to find a stimulus not found anywhere else with this depth. An appointment indispensable and nearby. In Madrid, each February.
(In the photo, Pello Irazu’s mural at the stand of the Soledad Lorenzo Gallery)...read more
CONSTRUCTIVE SPIRIT. STOCKHOLM FURNITURE FAIR 2012
We like the North and all the lessons that it gives us in the field of design, ecology, good architecture, materials, the use of the objects. In February we were lucky, once again, to be there thanks to the faith in our work of Kurt Tingdal, Anders Englund and Eero Koivisto. We are so grateful that, along with the USB stick of Offecct that we designed this year for the press, we were delivering good jamón serrano to all our friend-designers, manufacturers and journalists.
An unforgettable week...read more
